May has been a very busy art month – which is super exciting! Here’s some info and snaps on my latest happenings from the 2 group art exhibitions I got to participate in!

As you might know already, I was shortlisted for the Milburn Art Prize, presented by the Brisbane institute of Art. I was all geared up and excited for the opening night on 1st May to see my work on display, and find out who the finalist was. However with all the crazy weather Queensland received that afternoon, the road outside the BIA got flooded! So the event was cancelled. A week later an artist’s only night was rescheduled so that the shortlisted artists could see their work, and get the chance to meet the other artists too. It was a quiet affair, but it was so great to see a wide range of techniques and methods used to create artistic imagery and have a chat with some other artists and the staff of BIA – it’s a wonderful little hub of all things art, and some of their classes look pretty fantastic too!

Congrats to all the artists who got to participate in the exhibition, and also to the winner Margie Hutchings for her ‘Beautiful Girls’ image! It was a great showcase of all different types of works from Brisbane to northern NSW! You can check out the other artist’s on the BIA website.

Following from this was the MIFQ ‘Hope in the Present’ group art exhibition in the King George Square, Brisbane City. My partner and his mother accompanied me on opening night on 13 May, where we were overwhelmed with the amount of impressive artworks on display. It’s always great to read a bit about the artist, their background, and what their work is about. We had a good hunt around for about 30 mins and still hadn’t seen my own works. I began to panic and thought they mustn’t have put mine in for some reason. And then finally, I turned a corner, and saw 4 little white frames holding my images. I was relieved to have found them, and then shocked when I quickly discovered 4 ‘Sold’ signs next to each image! I’ve never really sold my work before, not officially anyway (love you Mum, but it doesn’t count when you ‘buy’ my work haha), so you can imagine I felt so humbled and excited and surprised all at once. Especially considering these images were special to me, as I not only created the photographs using film, but spent time working on each image by hand, applying the mixed media. They are one of a kind, unlike my other work which can be shared and seen multiple times online – adding the ‘real’ elements to these works made them more special. And so realising that someone else liked my work enough to want them for themselves made me a little bit emotional! It didn’t help that the MIFQ gallery volunteers approached me and said my works had been very popular and if they weren’t sold already, that they would have liked to buy them themselves!

Here are photos of the works that were on display (sorry for the odd angles, it’s tricky photographing glass frames without getting a reflection!)

I’m really glad I got to participate in this exhibition, as it was a great experience, and a chance for me to help create awareness for something I feel strongly about. I tried something new and had such a great response, and am now considering creating some more work similar to this!

Thanks to all for the lovely comments and support of my latest work, I really appreciate you keeping up with my journey 🙂